But the current proposal that states are adopting doesn’t have any national body at all to oversee the vote tally, and you think that’s a serious problem too.

Yes, it’s Scylla and Charybdis. Here are the problems on the other side.

Let’s say, California says, “Gee, let’s let 17-year-olds vote because there’ll be more Californians in the national popular vote that way.” Then Florida says, “We’re going to let 16-year-olds vote.” And then Arkansas says, “We’re going to let dogs vote. Or we’re going to let parents vote for 12-year-old children.”

Some states make it really easy to vote and register to vote, some states don’t. Is it really a national popular vote — a “one person, one vote” system — if you have huge variation in voter eligibility, voter registration, administration on Election Day, or election month as it is in some places.

Or, states agree to this plan. They add up to 270. And then as Election Day approaches, something may happen in an individual state, and they try to back out. What’s going to happen in that situation? Or what if they don’t back out in advance of the election, but try to change their rules after election day? What happens if a state supreme court says, “That’s not consistent with our state constitution?”

What I don’t want is for a deeply imperfect, historically tainted Electoral College system — that for all its flaws, actually works — to be replaced by a possibly catastrophic, legally glitchy new system where we don’t know who’s president, where we don’t know who won the popular vote.